{"id":16289,"date":"2015-06-04T01:12:29","date_gmt":"2015-06-03T17:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-marks-50th-anniversary-of-first-spacewalk\/"},"modified":"2015-06-04T01:12:29","modified_gmt":"2015-06-03T17:12:29","slug":"nasa-marks-50th-anniversary-of-first-spacewalk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-marks-50th-anniversary-of-first-spacewalk\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA marks 50th anniversary of first spacewalk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>STORY WRITTEN FOR&nbsp;CBS NEWS&nbsp;&amp; USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_6697\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6697\" style=\"width: 621px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-6697\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/2-s65-30431b.jpg\" alt=\"Astronaut Ed White stepped outside the Gemini 4 spacecraft on June 3, 1965, for the first U.S. spacewalk. Credit: NASA\/Jim McDivitt\" width=\"621\" height=\"421\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/2-s65-30431b.jpg 985w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/2-s65-30431b-300x203.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/2-s65-30431b-768x521.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 621px) 100vw, 621px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6697\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Astronaut Ed White stepped outside the Gemini 4 spacecraft on June 3, 1965, for the first U.S. spacewalk. Credit: NASA\/Jim McDivitt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Two-and-a-half months after cosmonaut Alexey Leonov became the first human to walk in space, NASA astronaut Ed White floated out of his cramped Gemini 4 capsule 50 years ago Wednesday to become the first American spacewalker.<\/p>\n<p>In the five decades since then, astronauts and cosmonauts have chalked up 413 spacewalks, including 187 totaling a combined 49 days to build and maintain the International Space Station and 23 covering nearly seven days to service the Hubble Space Telescope.<\/p>\n<p>While spacewalks have become a relatively common part of modern spaceflight, working in the vacuum of space while moving at five miles per second and experiencing huge temperature swings passing into and out of Earth\u2019s shadow will never be routine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery time we send our astronauts outside the International Space Station, we\u2019re doing risk trades to make sure they\u2019re going to be safe and accomplish the tasks they need to accomplish,\u201d astronaut Mike Foreman, veteran of five spacewalks, or EVAs, said in an interview. \u201cSpacewalking will probably never get routine, at least not in the foreseeable future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And it certainly wasn\u2019t routine for Leonov, a 30-year-old cosmonaut who became history\u2019s first spacewalker on March 18, 1965. Leaving crewmate Pavel Belyayev behind inside the Voskhod 2 spacecraft, Leonov spent about 12 minutes floating outside, marveling at the view, before heading back to a makeshift airlock.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe ability to see the whole Earth as a globe, pretty much, is something that was extremely attractive,\u201d he said in a recent NASA interview. \u201cAnd I could easily recognize the Black See, the Crimea, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, (the) Baltic Sea, and it was all within minutes, if not seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Equally impressive: the \u201cenormous, unbelievable silence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"678\" height=\"509\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CwQPaoYZgp0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI heard how my heart was pounding,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI could hear myself breathe. I remember Arthur Clark and Stanley Kubrick who, while doing \u2018Space Odyssey,\u2019 they worked a lot on the sound track, and the way the crew members used to breathe during this movie was very impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And the stars, he said, \u201cwere very bright, there were a lot of them. What was interesting is they were everywhere, they were above and they were beneath. On the ground, we can only see stars up in the sky. In space, they are everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The thrill quickly turned into drama on the high frontier. Because of the stiffness of his pressurized suit, and because his fingers had worked their way out place in the suit\u2019s gloves, he could not get into the airlock feet first as planned. Sweating with exertion, he eventually had to partially deflate his suit before managing to pull himself in head first and then struggling to turn around and secure the outer airlock cover.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI knew I might be risking oxygen starvation, but I had no choice,\u201d he wrote in an article for the Smithsonian Institution\u2019s Air and Space magazine. \u201cIf I did not re-enter the craft, within the next 40 minutes my life support would be spent anyway.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe only solution was to reduce the pressure in my suit by opening the pressure valve and letting out a little oxygen at a time as I tried to inch inside the airlock. At first I thought of reporting what I planned to do to mission control. But I decided against it. I did not want to create nervousness on the ground. And anyway, I was the only one who could bring the situation under control.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Finally, he managed to pull himself inside and \u201ccurl my body around in order to close the airlock,\u201d he wrote. \u201cOnce Pasha (Belyayev) was sure the hatch was closed and the pressure had equalized, he triggered the inner hatch open and I scrambled back into the spacecraft, drenched with sweat, my heart racing.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_6698\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6698\" style=\"width: 621px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-6698\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/16616150859_9c1d6a55cd_o.jpg\" alt=\"Alexei Leonov conducted the first spacewalk on March 18, 1965. Credit: FAI\" width=\"621\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/16616150859_9c1d6a55cd_o.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/16616150859_9c1d6a55cd_o-300x218.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/16616150859_9c1d6a55cd_o-768x557.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 621px) 100vw, 621px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6698\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alexei Leonov conducted the first spacewalk on March 18, 1965. Credit: FAI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>White\u2019s spacewalk came on June 3, 1965, during NASA\u2019s Gemini 4 mission with crewmate James McDivitt. In a NASA oral history, McDivitt recalled the crew had problems closing the Gemini hatch during a vacuum chamber test before launch. During the flight, the the hatch mechanism refused to open, but McDivitt and White, familiar with the mechanism, finally coaxed internal gears to engage and White floated outside.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen Ed went to open up the hatch, it wouldn\u2019t open,\u201d McDivitt recalled in a NASA oral history. \u201cI said, \u2018Oh my God,\u2019 you know, \u2018it\u2019s not opening!\u201d And so, we chatted about that for a minute or two. And I said, \u2018Well, I think I can get it closed if it won\u2019t close.\u2019 But I wasn\u2019t too sure about it. I thought I could. \u2026 So anyway, we elected to go ahead and open it up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The crew did not tell mission control about the glitch. \u201cI mean, there was nothing they could do,\u201d McDivitt said. \u201cThey would\u2019ve said, \u2018No,\u2019 I\u2019m sure. Anyway, we went ahead and opened it up; and Ed went out and did his thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During a 23-minute EVA marred by spotty communications, White tested a compressed-gas maneuvering gun, gained experience moving about in weightlessness and posed for iconic photographs by McDivitt. Finally, approaching the terminator and orbital darkness, he was told to get back inside the Gemini capsule.<\/p>\n<p>White was reluctant to end the excursion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s no sweat,\u201d White radioed. \u201cActually, I\u2019m trying to get a better picture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, come on in,\u201d McDivitt replied.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m trying to get a picture of the spacecraft now,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEd, come on in here!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll right,\u201d White agreed. \u201cLet me fold the camera and put the gun up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Handing a camera in to McDivitt, along with his maneuvering gun, White managed to work his way into the cramped capsule feet first. But when they attempted to close and lock the hatch, the mechanism did not engage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t lock,\u201d McDivitt said. \u201cAnd so, in the dark I was trying to fiddle around over on the side where I couldn\u2019t see anything, trying to get my glove down in this little slot to push the gears together. And finally, we got that done and got it latched.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A NASA history describing the scene said \u201cWhite sat back, physically exhausted, sweat streaming into his eyes and fogging his faceplate. McDivitt also felt tired, so they rested before extending a radio antenna to find a ground-based voice and tell Earth all was well. \u2026 The crew of Gemini IV had almost circled the globe in an unpressurized spacecraft.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Leonov, now 81, went on to make a second trip into space in 1975, participating in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. White was in training for the first piloted Apollo test flight when he and two crewmates \u2014 Virgil \u201cGus\u201d Grissom and Roger Chaffee \u2014 were killed in a launch pad fire on Jan. 27, 1967.<\/p>\n<p>Foreman praised both men for their courage, saying \u201ccomparing the risks those guys took back in the day to what we take now is just night and day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey were really hanging it out there,\u201d he said. \u201cSlipping outside and then trying to force your way back inside the space vehicle with that pressurized suit and trying to get the hatch closed (was difficult). Of course, you\u2019re pretty motivated to get back inside and get that hatch closed! But still, they were hanging it out there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>STORY WRITTEN FOR&nbsp;CBS NEWS&nbsp;&amp; USED WITH PERMISSION Astronaut Ed White stepped outside the Gemini 4 spacecraft on June 3, 1965, for the first U.S. spacewalk. Credit: NASA\/Jim McDivitt Two-and-a-half months after cosmonaut Alexey Leonov became the first human to walk in space, NASA astronaut Ed White floated out of his cramped Gemini 4 capsule 50 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2490,4039,4040,4041,1547],"class_list":["post-16289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-alexei-leonov","tag-ed-white","tag-gemini-4","tag-jim-mcdivitt","tag-spacewalk"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16289"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}